


New Way

by SeeEmRunning



Series: New Life [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-19
Updated: 2013-05-18
Packaged: 2017-12-12 06:53:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/808587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeeEmRunning/pseuds/SeeEmRunning





	1. Chapter 1

Rachel Stockton slipped out of bed and wrestled on a shirt. Padding quietly to the door, she listened for a moment and, hearing nothing, continued on her way. She sat down at the dining room table and fired up the laptop that had been one of her only companions for months.

She pulled the book on the table closer to her and flipped to the page she had marked. It was written in Spanish, of which she had only a passing knowledge, but there was a Spanish-English dictionary on her computer. She pulled her long blond hair into a ponytail, taking care not to accidentally entrap the legs of her glasses, and got to work.

The book was old but sturdy, and Rachel was thankful she didn't need to use gloves to handle it. Some of her host's books would crumble if the oil from her hands touched them. Referring to the dictionary only occasionally now - when she'd first started, she'd had to look up nearly every word - she got through five pages of cramped handwriting before she heard someone above her stir. She kept working, knowing it was only Bobby.

Sure enough, she heard the unmistakable sound of his boots coming down the stairs just minutes later. The kitchen light flickered on and he started shuffling around to make coffee. "Rachel? That you?"

"In the flesh," she answered.

"Why didn't you make coffee?"

"And spare you the ritual?" she retorted. Months ago, she'd made the mistake of getting the coffee started before Bobby was awake. He'd nearly bitten her head off for it.

Bobby started the coffeepot and came out to the table. "What are you on now?" he asked.

"Something in Spanish about walking dead."

"I didn't know you spoke Spanish."

"I don't," she said, "but I'm getting better. I started this book three days ago and I'm only twenty pages in, but I did five of those since I came down this morning."

"When did you come down, anyway?" he asked suspiciously.

"Uh...one, maybe? Two?" Rachel guessed.

"Still not sleeping well," Bobby said.

"No," she answered, though it wasn't a question, and turned back to her book. She really didn't want to discuss her sleeping habits - or her eating habits, for that matter - with him.

"One of these days you're going to sleep for a week."

"Maybe."

Bobby sighed. "Sam, Dean, and I are heading out to Nebraska today," he told her, a subject change she was grateful for. "We got demonic omens there."

Rachel couldn't entirely hide her surprise. "You're going with them? I thought you preferred staying here and manning the phones."

"I do," Bobby grunted. "I'm old, I'm tired, and I'm worn down. But with the Devil's Gate opened, it's all hands on deck. You can handle the phones for a few days."

"Good thing I'm on nights right now." She worked twelve-hour shifts at the Sioux Falls sheriff's department three or four nights a week as a dispatcher. Her comment came from the knowledge that most hunters would only be giving out Bobby Singer's number during the day, so she would be there and, given how little she slept, awake. 

Three hours later, Bobby and Dean were upstairs packing when Sam found her, still sitting at the table, coffee untouched. He sat across from her and cleared his throat.

Rachel looked up and raised her eyebrows at the look on his face. She'd seen him hurt, scared, angry, embarrassed, happy, sad - but she'd never seen him like this. "What's on your mind?" she asked, careful to ask it the way she'd ask it if he didn't look so vulnerable.

"Dean," he said quietly. "Dean and his deal."

Rachel nodded. She'd expected him to be thinking about that, but she hadn't expected him to come to her. "Anything in particular, or the overall idea?"

Sam's lips quirked. "Is there any way out?"

Rachel nibbled her bottom lip. "I don't know." Her eyes moved behind him to the shelves full of old books. "I can look. Maybe there's something online Bobby hasn't seen."

"I appreciate that," Sam said.

"Sam…" Rachel sighed. "I don't want to get your hopes up," she said carefully. "You know better than I do how demon deals work."

"Yeah, I do. But I have to try." Sam looked at her with painful hope. "You can't tell me you'd be feeling the same way if Amanda -"

"Shut up," Rachel said sharply, standing up abruptly. _Nobody_ had the right to mention her dead twin if they had never known her. "Don't you _dare_ bring her into this."

"You're proving my point -"

Rachel leaned over the table, fists clenched. "Don't _ever_ use her to prove a point." She turned and stormed off, seething with rage. Amanda was not a bargaining chip. She'd been the reason Rachel could get out of bed in high school, had been the only keeping Rachel from going entirely off the deep end. Sam Winchester was _not_ allowed to use Amanda to manipulate her. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew she was being irrational, but she really didn't care.

She had just managed to calm herself down when Dean found her on the porch. "Hey," he said. "Can we talk for a minute?"

Rachel hesitated for a second, battling with herself, before giving in. "Sure. What's up?"

"Can we walk and talk?" he asked.

Rachel's alarm bells went off for the second time that morning. Dean wanting to walk meant this was going to be something heavy.

"Of course," she answered, hiding her thoughts. They wandered out into the heaps of scrap metal. Rachel stayed quiet, content to let the silence lie until Dean was ready to say what he wanted to.

It took him almost five minutes, and when he spoke, he determinedly looked anywhere but at her. "When Sam was … stabbed …" He swallowed, obviously not wanting to remember that moment, and Rachel felt her heart sink. This was the second time in half an hour a self-contained Winchester had come to her for a heart-to-heart. "It was like my world … imploded. My entire life was just bleeding out on the ground, and I couldn't do anything. And I held him as he died." Dean swallowed again. "And I can't help - every time I look at him, all I can remember is putting pressure on the wound, telling him it wasn't bad, telling him he'd be okay, and knowing I was lying to him. And then I made it right, and he hates me for it."

"He doesn't hate you for it," Rachel told him. "He thinks you're an idiot for doing it, but he knows why you made that deal."

"Just - just promise me something?" Dean looked at her for the first time since he started talking, and his face was shockingly open.

"What?"

"When I'm in Hell, help him deal. Please."

"Why me? Bobby knows you two better -"

"That's why. Bobby's going to be destroyed by this, and then -"

"And you think I _won't_ be hurt?" Rachel snapped, her earlier irritation spilling over.

Dean flinched. "No, I - I know you will," he said, "but - Rachel, you've already survived so much. The only person Sam's lost that he really cared about was Jess, and I dragged him off into hunting. But I won't be there this time. Please, Rachel. Don't let him go through this alone."

Rachel stopped walking and stared at him. "Do you really think," she said, not entirely able to keep the hurt out of her voice, "that after all this time, I would let him deal with the loss of his brother alone? For Pete's sake, Dean, I thought you knew me better than that." 

"I do," Dean said hastily, "I really do, but - I just -I need to know you'll be there."

"You two kept me busy after - after everything happened, and I owe you for that, but more than that, I _like_ you. I'd do anything for you, you know that, so why are you acting like I'm going to run off and leave Sam to his own devices?"

"I didn't think," Dean said quietly. "I just - I've been so focused on Sam and Bobby…"

"That you didn't think about me," Rachel said gently, and knew by his cringe she was right. "It's okay." _I'm used to it._ "I'll look after them, Dean."

"Promise?" He looked at her again, his green eyes wide and vulnerable, and she nodded, putting aside all the hurt and anger she felt. After all, compared to the Winchesters, she didn't have a leg to stand on when it came to hurt emotions and family drama.

"Promise."

Dean squeezed her shoulder - in apology or thanks, she wasn't sure, but she wasn't about to ask - and turned around. Rachel followed his lead. They didn't say another word as they walked back to the house.

Sam and Bobby were throwing their bags into their cars. Bobby looked at her. "Be careful. Remember the precautions."

"I will," Rachel said. They piled into their cars - two to the Impala, one to the old pickup - and drove away. She watched them go, wishing, not for the first time, that she was healthy enough to help.

***  
It had been two days of no contact from the boys, and she was starting to get worried. It was nearing midnight, and she tried to calm herself by translating and typing the same Spanish volume she'd been working on for what felt like forever, but she had one ear cocked for the rumble of the Impala. When the phone rang instead, harsh and shrill in the silent house, she jumped and rose automatically. _Which one are you - ah. FBI. Who the hell is giving out this number at midnight?_

"Erikson," she said into the phone, voice crisp and professional.

"Stan Erikson?"

"Yes. Are you are?" She made sure her tone was that of someone too busy to play games.

"Becca Brewer, of the Linden PD. We have two men claiming to be agents here."

When she didn't continue, Rachel said impatiently, "And?"

"And I'd really like to speak to Stan Erikson now."

"You are," Rachel growled.

"Nice try. Put me through to your boss."

Rachel made her voice hostile. "Is there a reason you doubt I'm Stan Erikson?"

"Other than the fact that 'Stan' is a male name and you are undoubtedly female?"

 _Think fast._ "My family's from the Old Country," she snapped. "It's short for Stanislova. If we're done playing Twenty Questions, Miss Brewer, I'm quite busy."

"It's _Detective_ Brewer," the woman said, and Rachel bit back a smile at the hint of a whine. "I have two men here by the names of Thomas Jones and William Smith" - Rachel grinned outright at that; apparently Sam and Dean weren't the only pop culture aficionados in the hunting world - "and I was wondering if you had anyone in your jurisdiction by those names."

"Jones and Smith are two of our best," Rachel assured the woman.

"Don't you need their badge numbers to look them up?"

"If you feel like wasting time, sure. But my answer won't change. You see, I actually _know_ who my subordinates are." She put just the right amount of condescension in her tone, and her only answer was a click. Rachel smiled in victory as she put the phone back on the line.

 _Stanislova._ Where the actual hell had she pulled that name from?

She deflated. _Oh. Right._ She'd been tiny, too small to know how old she was, and had just found out her parents had names that weren't _Mommy_ and _Daddy_. With the kind of logic only small children possessed, she'd claimed she wanted to be called _Stan_ from then on, after her daddy, and her mother had explained that some names were just for boys. Her father had come up with _Stanislova_ , a name that made her laugh, and it had been a running joke until she was seven or eight. She'd forgotten about it, or thought she had.

Feeling newly miserable, she pulled the Spanish book closer. She could get something useful done, at least.

Five minutes later, she slammed the book shut, uncaring that she'd just lost her place and that her lack of fluency would make finding it again a bitch. She pulled her glasses off, rested her head in her hands, and let herself sob.

Something always reminded her of what she'd lost. When something funny happened, she still reached for her phone to text her sister. When someone called Sam's name, her first reaction was to look not for the younger Winchester but for the brother who dwarfed even him. The clock in the living room reminded her of her father, who'd dedicated the last seven years of his life to fixing the damn things and made half of their home so cacophonous they couldn't hear themselves think over the chimes. Her job reminded her of her mother, who'd been a dispatcher for five years before the fire.

Wasn't it supposed to get easier with time? Wasn't the giant hole in her chest supposed to close itself up? Wasn't the emptiness, the nausea, the loneliness supposed to disappear? Wasn't she supposed to stop hurting?

 _Since when has_ supposed to _been a valid reason for you to do anything?_ she asked herself scornfully. She couldn't help the bitter laugh that bubbled out of her throat and choked her.

She stumbled out to the kitchen. Cook, that's what she'd do. She'd have treats ready for the boys whenever they decided to stumble back in, probably bruised but still running the adrenaline high.

By four in the morning, she'd made a loaf of banana bread that she knew Sam would appreciate, a pecan pie for Dean, and blueberry turnovers for Bobby. Of course, she didn't know if Sam and Dean would be coming back, but if they did, she wanted them to have something, and if they didn't, she could take any leftovers into work.

Comforted by the reminder that she had a routine, that she had something to do outside the house, Rachel finished cleaning up and went back to her translation.

She nodded off over the book somewhere around five, woke up at five-thirty, and continued with the translation. At seven, she started coffee. At one, she made herself a peanut butter sandwich, of which she could only eat half, and went back to her translation. At three, she fell asleep again for about an hour. At four, she went to shower and get ready for her shift.

She tried not to worry about the boys the whole time, and when she got back, the familiar cars were sitting in the lot.

They'd gotten into her baking, she saw: the banana bread was down to a third of its original size, the pecan pie was half gone, and there were nine of the original dozen turnovers left on the plate. There were crumbs on the counter and table - though the spot with her laptop and the Spanish book had been left alone, she noticed with relief - and she half-smiled at their messiness.

Rachel's biggest dream had always been to be a housewife. She wanted a house full of kids (one or two biologically hers and as many adopted as they could take), a loving husband with a steady income, and a combined jewelry/carpentry business she ran from home. She liked cooking alone with shouts and laughter ringing through the house. She liked cleaning up while her family talked in the dining or living room. She liked being domestic in a loud, messy house.

But then her back had to decide that it would snap if she ever got pregnant, and her damn mind had to decide that she wouldn't be interested in dating anyone; at nineteen years old, Rachel had yet to have any interest in anyone, romantically or sexually, and she hated herself for it. So she hung up her fantasy of being a housewife and found a replacement dream of designing explosives. It paled in comparison to what she truly wanted, but it didn't make her miserable just thinking about it, and that made it better than anything else she'd considered.

But this house brought her dream back full force and almost fulfilled it. Messy boys, freedom to cook and clean, laughter and yells breaking the silence - it was her own version of Paradise, she thought as she wet a rag to wipe down the counters and the battered table and pulled out a large plastic bag to keep the banana bread from going stale.


	2. Chapter 2

Rachel was still going through her translation when she heard the familiar tread of Bobby's boots on the staircase. She smiled a bit when she heard him start the coffee; she hadn't realized how much she'd missed having someone else in the house.

"Sam and Dean are heading out tomorrow," he called from the kitchen.

"Kay," she answered absently, absorbed in the translation. It would be so much easier if she was fluent.

"Easy salt and burn down in Oklahoma."

Rachel snorted, eyes still on the book. "Since when has one of _their_ salt and burns been easy?"

"True," Bobby allowed, and they didn't speak again until the boys came down with their laughter and jokes.

Sam was quiet until Bobby and Dean went out to the garage, and then he said, "Rachel?" like he wasn't sure of the reaction he'd receive.

"What's up?" she asked absently, trying to unknot a particularly poorly-worded sentence that was confusing the hell out of her.

"About - about what I said, before we left -"

"Forget it," she said, knowing instantly he was talking about Amanda. "I overreacted."

"I still shouldn't have -"

"I said forget it," she said tightly. She tried to be there for them, really she did, but some things just weren't up for discussion, and this was one of them. "Water under the bridge. If I was angry I wouldn't've made you bread."

"Still -"

"Sam," she snapped, looking up at him. "Please. I was in the wrong -"

"That's not what this is about," Sam interrupted, anger flashing across his face.

"I know," she said, deflating. "This is about your need to talk everything out and make sure there isn't anything festering." She'd been that way, once, but then she'd given up on figuring out what her own emotions were doing, let alone everyone else's. "I promise you, there's nothing. I almost forgot about it." She smiled at him, hoping he'd just let it drop.

He sighed. "Okay. I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for," she said, and meant it.  
***  
The next month and a half passed quickly. Sam and Dean didn't come back, but they called occasionally. One memorable night in late July, Dean called asking about a rabbit's foot that had gotten stolen from a storage locker. Not long afterward he called to ask how to destroy it. Then came the call saying Sam had been shot.

Then came the call where he laughed himself sick, telling Rachel all about how the air conditioner had caught fire and Sam had lost his shoe. She laughed with him about Sam's bad luck and mentioned that she was registering for classes at a local college.

"Gonna major in languages?" he teased. He knew she was fluent in three languages, could read four now that she'd mastered Spanish, and was learning a fifth.

"Math, I think," she answered. "The teacher down at the high school is retiring soon. Figure I can pick up his job."

The line was quiet for a moment, and then Dean said, "I'm sure you will." She couldn't quite make out his tone. "Listen, I gotta get back to research."

"Good luck," she told him. The line went dead. "Would it kill you to say goodbye?" she grumbled.

Before she knew it, it was August, she was turning twenty, and her classes were starting up. She rearranged her shifts at the sheriff's office, suddenly happy she didn't need much sleep when she realized she'd be pulling eighteen-hour days. She fixed up her clothes. For the first time in months, she put makeup on because she wanted to, not because she was going in for an interview and had to look nice.

The only thing that could bring her down was the knowledge that she would be around a lot of people she didn't know. Spending so much time with Bobby's books and only a few coworkers had made her forget how nerve-wracking she found being in public.

Her first class was the seminar all students were required to take, followed by math, two educations, and another math. She'd figured out her schedule before she'd registered; between transfer, dual-enroll, and AP credits, she could have her teaching license and a Bachelor's in math after just two semesters. Financial aid, both merit- and need-based, gave her a full ride. In short, it was going to be a good year.

She'd always liked math, though she wasn't the greatest at it. She was better at English and history, but she'd always found those subjects too easy, almost boring. Her worst subject, chemistry, was her favorite. There was a message there somewhere, but she didn't want to look too hard at it.

One day in mid-October, she came back to Bobby's house to find a scene of barely-controlled chaos. "What's going on?" she asked a grizzled man standing near the door.

"Customers outside," he grunted, shoving her away.

She rolled her eyes, knowing that arguing with a hunter would get her nowhere. She looked around the room, hoping to find Bobby, but he wasn't in her line of sight. She moved to the stairs, intending to put her books in the bedroom she'd been using - in name, anyway - since she'd gotten to South Dakota.

One of the men grabbed her. "Didn't you hear him? Customers outside," he snapped.

"Ain't a customer," she snapped back, shaking her arm free and starting up the stairs.

He grabbed her again and pulled, knocking her off her feet. She hit the stairs hard, back-first, and choked in pain. It was fire and ice and painpainpainburncoldnervefirepainmusclepainnowordspain.

And then it was noiseandlightandcolorsandshoutingandisthatBobbywho'spoking ohGodohGodohGodthathurtshurtshurtshurtshurts ohshititsburningagainwhatsgoingonwhostalking cantbreatheairairairairair -

White.

And then a smear of light brown and beige - was that Bobby? She squinted, suddenly realizing her glasses were no longer on her nose.

"You done carryin' on?" Bobby asked gruffly.

"Whuh?" she mumbled, her mouth not wanting to move much. Opening her jaw even that much sent spikes of pain through her.

"You been moanin' for the past coupla hours," he informed her. She grunted, all she could manage. "Your back's pretty bruised, but I don't think you broke anything. Can you sit up?"

She shifted her arms to try, but had to stop. Tears trickled down her face from the pain that one movement caused.

"I'll take that as a no. I gave you a Vicodin about two hours ago, but it didn't really help." At least that explained the cramping in her lungs; acetaminophen always made her respiratory system act like it had raided the liquor cabinet the night before. "Guess you weren't joking about having a high tolerance for everything."

"Nope," she rasped. Just that much movement made her stomach cramp with nausea. She forced it down. "Sorry."

He waved her off. "Just be quiet. I'm in the middle of research."

"Yeah," she managed.

The next day, she was up and about like the incident had never happened, long experience reminding her that pushing back to normal was the best way to get over the lingering pain.

The next weeks were, to put it lightly, boring. She went to school, then to work, then back to Bobby's for a few hours to shower and get in her usual hour of sleep. Sometimes Bobby went on hunts, but he was usually back at the yard.

Then she started wishing for monotony when she came back from school one day to find Bobby slumped unconscious over his desk.

"Bobby?" she called cautiously, looking for the bottles she knew were around somewhere but not finding them. "You okay?"

He didn't answer. She dropped her bag in the doorway and crossed to the desk. "Bobby?" she tried again, louder, and when he still didn't respond, she reached out to shake him, keeping enough space between them that he couldn't sucker-punch her when he came to.

But he didn't come to. He rolled right off the chair and hit the ground with a thud that turned the blood in her veins to ice. When she knelt down to take his pulse, it was sluggish and his skin was cool.

"Shit," she mumbled, digging her phone out of her pocket and dialing with shaky fingers, first 911, then Sam and Dean.

She wasn't too clear on what happened once they'd shown up. They refused to tell her anything - the closest they got was, "Think we know what's causing it, we're going to try something, don't freak out if we don't answer for a while," before lapsing into comas themselves, leaving her anxious and worried and trying to figure out what the hell they were using dreamroot for.

Whatever it was, it worked. Sam and Dean remained tightlipped about the whole affair, though Sam was kind enough to shoot her embarrassed and apologetic glances (because she preferred embarrassed apologies to explanations). Bobby waited until they'd left to explain what had happened: Some asshole kid had slipped him dreamroot while he was working a case, Sam and Dean had come in to rescue him. 

That was the last she heard of it, but she called Sam that night to rage at him for keeping her out of the loop and treating like some fragile precious piece of glass they had to protect.

"What? No, that's not -" he started.

"Isn't it?" she snapped back. "Damn it, Sam, I've been living with Bobby for almost a year now. When he's in a coma, you don't tell me you've got it under control and then _lapse into comas yourselves._ Did it even occur to you I'd be worrying my ass off? Or were you too concerned with protecting me from the evils of the big, bad world?"

"Of course we thought you'd be worried, that's why we told you not to -"

"Yeah, well, telling me not to do something is a damn good way of making me worry even more! You know why? It tells me you _know_ there's a risk, and you don't care. And it tells me you don’t think enough of me to even tell me what you're doing. All I got was 'don't worry, be happy' from you two idiots, and you expected me to be okay with that?" Her voice was trembling with rage. "It's too late for this time, but damn it, _promise_ me that the next time you get up to your eyeballs, you tell me what the hell is going on."

"I'm sorry," Sam said. "It wasn’t about protecting you, and it wasn't about not thinking enough of you. It's just that you're not as - I don't know -"

"Seasoned," Dean put in. She hadn't even known he was listening. "You can read as many books as you can, but you've never been on a hunt, and the last thing you needed to be doing was panicking."

"And withholding information was the best way to keep me from panicking?" she snarled. "Did you think maybe having some idea of what was going on would have helped?"

"Yeah," Sam said, "we do. We're sorry. We'll let you in next time, if there is a next time."

"You better," she mumbled, suddenly feeling very tired, very old, and very ashamed of how she was treating them. "I'm sorry," she said wearily. "I shouldn't have taken the past few days out on you."

"You really do turn on a dime, don't you?" Dean asked bluntly.

Her temper flared up again, but she reined it in with effort. "No, Dean, I don't. I'm still mad as shit at you two, and I'm still upset you didn't think cluing me in was worth any effort on your part. But those are my problems to work through, not yours, and I've always had a bad habit of taking my problems out on the people around me. I'm working on it."

"I know someone else who needs to work on it," Sam said wryly. "Call you later, all right?"

"Yeah. Keep yourselves safe."

"You too, Rachel. Bye."


	3. Chapter 3

Rachel was woken from her usual half-hour of rest by her phone's annoying ringtone. She groped for it and grunted, "Yeah."

"Rachel?"

"Who else, dickhead?" she grumbled.

There was a pause where she could practically _feel_ the guy at the other end of the line reevaluating his decision to call her. "Bad time?" he asked, and Rachel finally placed the voice.

She sighed. "No, not really. Just woke me up, is all. I'm awake now, so what's up?"

"Sorry."

"Me, too. Didn't mean to call you a dickhead. What's up?"

"I just - um - I needed to talk to someone," Sam said sheepishly.

"Dean not cutting it?" she asked wryly.

"It's _about_ Dean."

"Continue," she prompted when he paused.

"We were hunting something, we didn't know what, and we thought it centered on this place called the Mystery Spot. The owner claimed it could bend time and space."

"Okay."

"We went there after closing, and Dean - Dean got shot." Rachel sucked in a breath, but let Sam keep talking. "He died. But the thing is, I woke up again, and he was fine. 'Heat of the Moment' by Asia was playing on the radio."

"That's good, right?" she asked confused. "Did the dream discom-"

"It wasn't a dream," Sam cut him off. "Because then Dean got hit by a car and I woke up _again_. He got crushed by a falling desk, and I woke up. He choked on a sausage, and I woke up. Fell in the shower, I woke up. Food poisoning. Electrocution. Axe. Arrow. Dog. Slipping on a floor. I got trapped in a time loop where Dean died over and over again, a hundred different ways, and it was messing me up pretty bad by the end."

He took a shaky breath. "I figured out it was a trickster and went after him. He let me out of the loop, and it was Wednesday. Which I guess is today. Or yesterday, I guess, it's so late." He let out a little bark of laughter. "God, time travel is screwy. So we go to pack the car. Dean - Dean gets shot, again, and he dies, again, but this time I don't wake up.

"I spent four months hunting down the damn thing, alone, no Dean, and when I finally find it, it sends me back to Wednesday morning. Dean's fine. He remembers none of it, just me threatening the stupid thing yesterday and not letting him out of my sight today. It . . . it freaked me out. Bad."

"I can see why," Rachel said. If it had been Amanda doing that, back when she was alive . . . Rachel shuddered. She definitely did _not_ want to go there.

"I just don't understand why," Sam said miserably. "I know they like tricking people, but usually to teach them something about their own behavior, so I don't know why -"

"They've been known to trick for other reasons," Rachel said, suddenly recalling something from a book she'd translated from Latin. "One in particular liked to pick people and teach them a lesson about what was going to happen. Dean's only got a few months left before his deal comes due, Sam. What if that was the lesson? How to let go?"

There was a long silence before Sam said, "It told me that much."

"Then you know why!" Rachel said, exasperated. "Don't go looking for deeper motives, Sam. Some things are cruel to be kind. Ever have a teacher that told you you couldn't do anything right, so you worked your ass off to get his approval? Same principle." She gentled her voice. "It sucks you watched him die. It sucks he died so many times. It sucks you had to live without him - believe me, I know. But I think it really was just a lesson in letting go. If it wasn't, why would he have sent you back?"

"Right," Sam said, and she could hear the nervousness bleeding through the line. "Um - back to the original point - I just - I don't know how to be around Dean any more."

Rachel paused for a long minute, trying to think of how to say what she wanted to without being a tactless little bitch. She settled on pushing it back and saying something else so she could have more information. "Why not?"

"Why not? I spent four months without him. Hunting by myself, sewing myself up, working alone. I took hunts I never should have survived. I fixed bullet wounds in my chest. I got used to not having anyone in the car with me, used to having the guns organized, used to not sharing a room with anybody. I focused so tightly on finding the trickster and bringing Dean back I forgot how to focus on anything else. Dean remembers nothing, so I'm trying not to freak him out, but I started to get in the driver's seat this morning. I'm sure you can guess how that went down." He laughed, but it was strained.

"It'll take time," she said gently. "Don’t worry. You'll get it back."

"What if I don't?" he whispered, and it clicked.

Sam wasn't just freaked because he'd watched his brother die a hundred and one times, gone four months without him, and then been sent back in time to save him. Sam was freaked because he was afraid he wouldn't be able to adjust to Dean before the deal was due.

"You will. Stop overthinking it. You two are so overbearingly codependent you won't be _able_ to keep from falling back into bad habits."

There was silence on the other end for a moment, and _man_ this was a call with a lot of time taken out to think. "Thanks," he said at last.

"Don't mention it."

"Go back to sleep, Rachel."

"Go _to_ sleep, Sam. Call me if you need to."

The line clicked dead, leaving Rachel wide awake and with a new purpose.

For the next two weeks, she put her transcription to the side and focused purely on trickster-related deaths, hunts, and lore when she wasn't answering the phones or working. If she slept or ate on a regular basis, they would have fallen by the wayside. Bobby barely noticed; he was used to seeing her with her nose in a book all the time, and he never really knew nor cared which.

She finally found a summoning ritual that she thought _might_ work, so the night of the full moon, she slipped out while Bobby slept and found an empty field. Burning meadowsweet to entice the supernatural, sage and ash bark for protection, High John root for justice and happiness (which were, after all, what a trickster lived for), and honeysuckle to promise sweetness, she whispered a few words in Greek and sliced her forearm, letting the blood trickle into the bowl.

"That's sweet, but you could have just called."

She squeaked and tried to turn around, forgetting she was sitting on the ground, and flinched when her sudden movement brought a large collection of painful pops from her lower back. She had to pause a moment, panting, to try to regain her equilibrium.

"Well that was informative. Tell me, what possible reason is there for a twenty-year-old with a bad back to summon me when I've never seen her before?"

"Minute," she grunted, rolling over onto her hands and knees to push herself up. More pops and crackles rang cheerfully over the field, and one look at the thing in front of her let her know it was _not_ impressed with the whole thing.

"Sorry about that," she said apologetically, "sometimes my back falls asleep and I forget moving like that's a bad idea. I just wanted to talk with you."

Its eyebrows raised, and she looked it over. It looked like a man a few inches taller than she was, with pale skin, golden hair, and amber eyes tinged with gold.

"What could you want to talk to me about?" it asked, a trace of amusement in its voice.

She swallowed. "The Winchesters. I assume you did what you did to teach Sam a lesson about the freaky codependency thing they have going on?"

It threw its head back and laughed. "So I'm not the only one who sees it!"

"I think everyone sees it," she said bluntly. "Some people just choose to ignore it."

Its grin grew even wider. "So what, exactly, do you want to know?"

"I know Dean isn't the only one who's made a demon deal. I'm sure he isn't the only one with a screwed-up relationship dynamic. So why them? Why go after people trained to kill you?"

"You're odd," it said. "I like odd. Red Hot?" He suddenly had a bag in his hand and was offering her some.

"No, thank you," she said.

"Don't you know it's rude to refuse a gift?" he asked, voice light, but there was an edge she'd be stupid to ignore.

She swallowed. "I'm allergic to cinnamon." It was a weak explanation, and one she likely wouldn't have tried if it wasn't the truth, but she hoped it would appease the thing in front of her.

"Oh. Coke barrel?" It offered her a different bag. "They only make them in this one little place, crystallize Coke syrup into these molds."

She shook her head in disbelief. "Allergic to Coke."

"Are you serious?" it asked. "Allergic to cinnamon and Coke. Any other allergies hiding away in there?"

She smiled sheepishly. "Tylenol. Pollen. Gold. Most of what I burned just now."

It stared at her for a moment before bursting into peals of laughter. "You are _not_ what I expected," he said when he'd calmed down.

She quirked her head at him, deciding to let the conversation play out in his direction. She knew instinctively she couldn't make him talk about anything he didn't want to, and she didn't want him to get annoyed and leave, so the best way for her to get answers to her questions was to go along with what he wanted. "How so?"

"Most people who do that ritual," he explained, "are either hunters determined to kill me or scholars curious about my nature. Nobody's tried it in a few centuries, though. How _did_ you find it?"

She shrugged. "I have a friend who has a lot of old books. When Sam called about a trickster playing with time, I got curious."

"You're friends with the Winchesters." Something shifted in his face.

"Not exactly friends," she said thoughtfully. "More like - I owe them, and I like them well enough for a couple of boys whose idea of fun is killing things, but we're not really close."

"Yet Sasquatch called you to tell you about a trickster he ran into."

"It's not like he has much of anyone else to call," Rachel pointed out. "Bobby would freak, and he and I are kind of the only people they know." If he knew them well enough to call Sam 'Sasquatch', he knew them well enough to know who Bobby was.

"I tangled with Bobby once," he said thoughtfully. "He and the Winchesters thought they put a stake through me."

"So this was revenge, then?" she asked.

"Revenge? Oh, no, sweetheart, you got me all wrong!" he said. "I played a couple of tricks and they rolled into town. I just couldn't resist messing with them a little, is all. And it was fun, coming up with ways to make Dean die."

Rachel was curious in spite of herself. "What kind of ways did you come up with?"

"Why do you want to know?" The suspicious look was back.

Rachel shrugged, which cracked her back a few more times. She barely heard it. "Curiosity. Sam told me about food poisoning, the dog, the desk, the car, being shot - both times, might I add - choking on a sausage, electrocution, something to do with an axe, falling in the shower, slipping on the floor, and something to do with an arrow. I was just wondering how creative you got."

"Is that a challenge?" he asked, a spark in his eyes.

She grinned at him. "Take it how you like."

He laughed again, then snapped his fingers. Two chairs appeared, one behind her and one behind him. A table was in between them, with a big bowl of candy. "Take a seat, sweetheart, and help yourself. I get the feeling we're going to talk for a while."

Rachel sat down cautiously, testing the chair. It supported her the way she needed it to, which was rare, and more than that, it was actually _comfortable_. She swallowed a moan - seriously, the chair was so good her back barely even hurt now - and looked at him. His lips were twitching, like he knew what was going through her mind just then, but all he said was, "Comfy?"

"Yes, thank you," she said, feeling better than she had in a long time. She was probably four the last time she hurt so little.

He sat in his own chair. "So. Creativity. How do you kill a man in entertaining ways?" Rachel waited for him to go on, but he smiled. "Uh-uh. I want to hear _your_ ideas. You have an entire town at your disposal. Hypothetical man, hypothetical town, how do you kill him?"

"Are we going for irony or shock value here?" she asked, ideas forming for each.

He grinned, showing off perfectly straight, bright-white teeth. "Either."

"And is conjuration on the table, or is it only what can be found in town?"

He grinned more widely, if that was possible. "Sure. You can conjure up anything you want."

Rachel ordered her thoughts. "For shock value, it's really hard to beat a pterodactyl swooping down Main Street, ripping him apart, and feeding him to nestlings on a church steeple."

The trickster looked like Christmas had come early. "That's brilliant. What else you got?"

"On the irony side of things, let's say you have an exterminator who takes shortcuts. Rats eat him alive."

He nodded. "Let's go back to shock value."

"Okay." Rachel smiled. "Firework that goes haywire, drags one of the operators up with it and explodes. People ooh and aah over a guy's death, which makes them feel just _terrible_ when they read about it in the papers the next morning. Fun house has one of the painted monsters come to life and rip him apart. Put him in roller-skates and add jets to them on a downhill with a sharp curve at the bottom. Spontaneous combustion always freaks people out. Recreate the scene from one of Tim Dorsey's books where Serge turns people into jerky. Virus that makes him go insane and start killing people until he himself is killed, but the virus spreads on contact. Empty his parachute pack just before he goes sky-diving. Make a trampoline so bouncy he goes right up to the edge of space or, Hell, _into_ space. Super-proof a shot so one will give him alcohol poisoning. Have an anvil fall out of the sky. Poisonous snakes slithering down the streets. Sharks suddenly have legs and lungs. No, wait, _orca whales_ suddenly have legs and lungs."

"Wow," he said, cutting her off. "You've thought about this."

She smiled sheepishly. "Maybe a little."

"Okay, taking conjuring off the table. What do you do with what's available?"

She thought. "Choking on a Lifesaver. Falling down and making sure he breaks his arm, which punches through the skin and into his heart because of the way he lands."

"Good one," he said approvingly - and just when had she started thinking of him as 'he' instead of 'it'? "Very messy, very bloody, very violent. Moving on. You're in the kitchen of a restaurant. Ways to kill him. Go."

"Knives, dunking him in a vat of boiling oil, slamming his head into the order screen, sticking a fork into a socket and making sure he has a hold of it, taking a battery and putting it into cuts in his hands, stuff him in the freezer," she said, deciding to get the obvious out of the way first. "Make him reach in and eat fries straight from the oil, grill his face, make sure the floor's wet so he slips and hits his head on a conveniently placed sharp object, have a light fall on top of him so he's electrocuted while having metal dig into his brain, shove an elongated receipt pick through his ear, building collapse, electrical short that starts a fire, make him drink any of the chemicals they use to clean -"

"Okay, that's enough," he said, sounding impressed. "You are one twisted girl, you know that?"

"I've been told," she said.

"Wonder why," he muttered, popping a caramel into his mouth. "So you wanted to know, why the Winchesters? It's simple: they're fun to watch."

"Fun to watch," Rachel repeated.

"Seeing Sasquatch run around like a chicken with its head cut off? Hilarious. You should try it sometime."

Rachel raised an eyebrow. "Not so much fun on this end," she said softly.

"Aw, come on, what? Preparing you for someone's eventual death - don't you wish someone would do that for you so it doesn't hurt so much when your parents go?"

Rachel bit her lip. "Too late for that."

He cocked his head, curious. "What?"

"Demons," she said bitterly. "Killed my entire family and everyone I considered a friend. That's how I met the Winchesters."

"Oh," he said. "How long -"

"Almost a year now."

"Huh. _Everyone?_ "

"Everyone," she confirmed. "My roommate and the two people I was close to on campus were first. Then my immediate family. Then any member of my family I'd spoken to in five years."

"Well that sucks."

Rachel laughed at his bluntness. "Yeah, you could say that. But when I said 'not so fun from this end', I meant having Sam call me at four in the morning because he's freaking out."

"Does he have concept of time? You were sleeping!" He actually sounded indignant, which she guessed was an act.

"Yeah, well, I only get about an hour a day anyway, so me being asleep was more of an unfortunate coincidence." She giggled. "I actually called him a dickhead."

"I would have paid to see the look on his face."

"It might have been interesting," she mused.

"Okay. So. New game!" He grinned at her. "I give you three objects. You figure out how to kill somebody. You in?"

She smiled. "I like your style." She had never claimed her sense of humor was anything approaching normal.

"Balloon, feather, plastic cup."

"Stick the balloon down his throat and blow it up, blocking his airway," was the first thing she said. "Crack the plastic cup and stab slivers of it through his eyes. Sharpen the end of the feather into a point, a la old quills, and start slicing."

"Bloody little thing, aren't you?" But it was approval in his voice, not anger, and so she smiled at him.

They talked for hours, sharing a fondness for bad puns and morbid humor. He always had a piece of candy in his mouth, but she only had a piece of butterscotch. Around three in the morning, when her voice was getting hoarse, he conjured up two mugs of hot chocolate. She groaned at the first sip - "This is phenomenal, how do you _do_ that?" - and no matter how much she drank, the mug never emptied.

Around dawn, the Trickster looked at her. "You seem happier than you were when I first arrived."

She shrugged. "Comfortable chair, good conversation partner, fantastic hot chocolate" - she threw him a teasing grin - "what's not to be happy about?"

"Well, you're sitting here with me, for one."

"And why would that make me unhappy?" she asked. "I like talking to you."

"I could kill you with a snap of my fingers."

She snorted. "And?"

"What, you don’t care?"

"Two outcomes: you kill me, in which case I stop existing and don't have to slog through the crap that piles up, or you leave me alive, in which case I've had a nice night. Win-win, buddy."

"So, what, you don't care if you die?"

"Not particularly. And aren't you glad? If I cared, I never would have summoned a creature who could blow me into pieces with a snap of his fingers and instead created a comfortable chair and delicious drinks." She raised her eyebrow.

"Point," he conceded. "But still, that's...do they know?"

 _They_ could only mean one thing in this context. "Of course not. What good would telling them do?"

"You're very odd," he said, this time not as a compliment.

"Force of habit," she quipped. "Damn, what time is it?" She glanced down at her watch. "I gotta get going before Bobby wakes up and wonders where I went."

"You have curfew?" he teased.

"No, but I'd rather avoid awkward questions than have to come up with answers." She stood and knelt down to clean up from the ritual. "Thank you, by the way."

"For what?" She hadn't seen him move, but suddenly he was kneeling across from her.

"You know. This," she said awkwardly.

"Can we do it again sometime?"

The question surprised her, and the look on his face told her it might have surprised him a little bit.

"I'd like that," she said. "Do you have a name? Or at least something I can call you? Because otherwise, I'm gonna have to come up with a nickname _for_ you."

He grinned. "Call me Loki."

"The Trickster God. Of course you're a god," she grumbled.

"Not a fan of gods?" he asked.

"More like I didn't believe in any of you until I got dragged into research eight months ago. Now I suddenly believe in all of you. Takes some adjustment." She dumped out the now-cold herbs.

"Oh, atheist, huh?"

"Didn't see much proof for any of y'all's existence. Figured if I was wrong, it was better to live as an honest atheist than a fake believer."

"Interesting take." He raised his eyebrows at the pops and cracks her body gave off as she stood up with the bowl in her hand. "You know, last time I heard something like that, the guy died pretty soon after."

"That's because I sound like I'm ninety," Rachel said dryly. "Unless that was a not-so-subtle way to imply you did something?"

"Me? No!" the Trickster - Loki - protested with an innocent smile. Rachel just smiled at him. "Honest. So, yeah, I admit it, the guy was ninety. His heart gave out."

"Good thing mine's mostly intact, then," she quipped, starting the half-mile walk back to the car.

"Only mostly?" he said teasingly.

"Only mostly," she said, not teasing at all, and they walked to the car in silence. Rachel was in the driver's seat when she turned to him. "Thanks."

"No problem. I'll find you later." Rachel nodded. "I'll just zap you back, then," Loki said cheerfully. "No use waking crotchety old Bobby Singer with the junk heap here."

"What?" Rachel asked, but it was too late. She was already back at the scrap yard.

"Freaking gods," she mumbled. A ghost of a laugh sounded in her ear.


	4. Chapter 4

The next night, she was driving back from class when her phone rang. She answered without looking at the caller ID and was greeted by Sam's rough voice.

"What's wrong?" she asked immediately.

"Turn on the news," Sam said hoarsely.

"Sam, I'm doing sixty down a highway. I can't turn on the news, so how about you just tell me?"

The story spilled out: They'd gone to Bela Talbot's apartment to look for the Colt, found themselves in lockup, been attacked by demons, convinced Henriksen (who Rachel gathered was the FBI agent who'd been hunting them) of the truth, performed a mass exorcism, and escaped. Lilith (Rachel guessed she was a high-ranking demon) found the station and destroyed it, killing everyone inside.

"You've had a sucky night," she said bluntly, changing lanes to get onto the exit ramp.

"Yeah, you could say that. Henriksen was a good guy. So were the people who worked in that office. I just don't - why do innocent people always have to die?"

Rachel wished she could close her eyes and bang her forehead against a wall. Or bang Sam's forehead against the wall. "Sam. You're not responsible for what demons do. It seems like a lot of innocent people die because you don't know who's innocent or not by looking at them. Who knows, maybe the people who worked there were sacrificing people to a local god." She remembered a story they'd told her about one of the first hunts they'd taken after Sam left Stanford. "You can't save everyone, Sam, no matter how much you wish you could."

"Have you-"

"I've got nothing on Dean's deal. I don't know if there _is_ anything, Sam."

"There is." His voice was firm. "There has to be."  
***  
"What the - _Loki!_ " Rachel steered the car back into her lane from where she'd swerved off the road. He'd just appeared in her passenger seat between one blink and the next, looking smug. "Don't _do_ that!"

"Do what, grace you with my gorgeous company?" he teased.

"Not when I'm driving down the middle of a road! Warn a girl!"

He laughed, bright and open. "See, that's why I like you. You're telling off a god. Not too many humans have the balls for that."

She rolled her eyes. "Not too many humans know gods exist."

"You live in one of the most religious countries in the world and saying people don't know we exist?"

"Yes! People have faith, that's the whole point of religion, but they don't _know_." A smile played around her lips. "Although I will admit people would probably be too awed about being in the presence of a god to mouth off."

"But not you. Mint?"

"Sure," she said, taking the offered candy. "Thanks."

He waved her off. "So what's on tap for today? Going on any big hunts?"

Rachel laughed. "I don't hunt. I do translation and man the phones in case anyone needs help."

"That sounds...incredibly boring, actually, is that all you do with your life?"

"Well, I'm in school to become a math teacher."

There was a long pause, and the Loki said, "I honestly don't know how you aren't bored to tears."

"Different strokes for different folks, I guess." She reached forward to crank the heat; South Dakota was freezing at the tail end of February. "So what have you been up to today? Find someone who deserved your special brand of justice?"

And so their friendship grew, based as it was on a shared love of seeing jerks get their comeuppance. The good-natured teasing they had going on was something Rachel had been missing since her friend Robert had moved away back when they were in high school; she hadn't really clicked with anyone since then. People were usually put off by her morbid sense of humor, and she hadn't found anyone to really relax around since. With Loki, she didn't have to be anyone but her sarcastic, occasionally vicious self, and she savored the time they spent together. She wasn't really sure what was in it for him, but she was going to enjoy it while it lasted.

She did get the occasional call from Sam or Dean, usually after they'd finished working a case where something strange had happened and they wanted her or Bobby's input or when the stress of Dean's deal was getting to them.

The search for an out wasn't going well. Rachel was running through Bobby's books as quickly as she could, but she could still read barely a quarter of them. She tried not to be too upset by that; learning to read six languages in less than two years was nothing short of miraculous, she knew, but she still vaguely hated that the answer could be in a book written in Gaelic or Arabic or some other language she couldn't yet decipher.

One day, desperate after a call involving Sam asking if she could figure out how to recreate a medical procedure by some guy named Benson who had Frankensteined himself in the early 1800s, she asked Loki if he knew anything about backing out of demon deals.

"This is about the Winchesters, isn't it?" he asked. He took her blush as confirmation and shook his head. "Don't know why you hang around with them, sweetheart. But no, I don't know any way to get out of the deal short of killing the demon that holds the contract."

"And the demon who holds the contract is more or less untouchable right now," Rachel said. "Basically, he's boned."

"To put it mildly," Loki said. He spent the next hour coaxing a smile out of her.

The day Dean's deal was due, he popped in on her while she was in Bobby's dining room. "Hi."

"Hi," she said absently, poring over a book in Greek.

"Still looking for a way out of the deal?"

She grimaced. "I've given up the ghost, actually. There's nothing that's going to be helpful in here."

"But you're still reading." He shook his head in mock disapproval.

"Hey, the books still need to be translated, typed out, and posted online," Rachel said defensively. "When I'm done with this page, though, I have homework."

"Homework, huh? Sounds like someone needs to have some fun." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"Loki!" she complained, laughing. "You're such a horndog. Or are you a fertility god, too?"

"Hello, god of fire? Festivals where people leap over fires for luck in conceiving? It's related."

Rachel snorted. "Related like Kevin Bacon, maybe."

"More like Mary-Kate and Ashley," he shot back, and Rachel wondered how such an ancient god had such a good grasp on pop culture.

He stayed with her longer than he usually did, and he was there at midnight when the clock chimed and she knew Dean was gone. He put a hand on her shoulder and stayed until she fell asleep, eyes red and aching from crying, and was still there when she woke up twenty minutes later.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"Not a problem," he answered, and she realized that for all his jokes and good humor, Loki knew when to be serious.  
***  
Bobby and Sam stumbled into the house, exhausted and filthy, with eyes red from crying, and dropped into chairs at the table. Rachel silently poured them coffee and made herself scarce. When it came down to it, she didn't know Dean nearly as well as those two did. She felt like an intruder to their grief.

When she got back from work, Sam swept her into a hug. She hugged him back and nodded to Bobby. They told her they hadn't eaten, and she made them sit at the table while she made something for dinner. She really wasn't sure what it was, but cooking had always made her feel better.

They sat, silent and barely eating, until almost ten. When Sam left the next day, Rachel couldn't exactly say it was a surprise.

"Call me," she told him. "And don't get yourself killed."

"I won't," he reassured her, closing the Impala's creaky door and driving off.


End file.
